Tanzania’s Jamii Africa Secures Investment From NewWave Technologies’ CEO
Jamii Africa; a Tanzanian insurtech startup, has announced the receipt of investment from US-based entrepreneur, Patrick Munis. The latest injection of funding into the enterprise inches it closer to its targeted USD 2 Mn; a benchmark that should facilitate its expansion plans into parts of East African neighbors, Kenya.
Since coming into existence in 2016, Jamii Africa has made significant strides in the area of making affordable health insurance services readily available and accessible to the underserved population in Africa. The startup has built a mobile policy management platform that has the capacity to handle all the administrative activities of an insurer, whilst also granting users easy access to cheap insurance via its Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) platform.
With plans starting out at as little as USD 1.00 per month per person, Jamii Africa can be considered to be serving up micro-health insurance services on a platter. The platform also claims to have provided health insurance coverage to more than 6,400 individuals since its inception, while assisting over 2,900 people in the aspect of making health insurance claims.
With the development, Patrick Munis; a successful US-raised and based entrepreneur and MIT alumnus who is of Nigerian descent, makes his debut in the African startup investment scene. His company, NewWave Technologies, is one of the most innovative data-in-healthcare companies in Washington DC, United States; a company he currently heads as Founder and CEO.
As indicated in an official press statement released to WeeTracker by Lilian Makoi, Founder and CEO of Jamii Africa, Patrick Munis’ NewWave Technologies currently boasts over 200 employees and manages substantial healthcare records of residents of Washington DC, USA.
By this move, Munis is leading the Series Seed round of Jamii Africa who are looking to raise USD 2 Mn, which will enable the company to reach more people in Tanzania and launch its operations in Kenya. With a total of USD 700 K now in the bag as per the latest investment, Jamii Africa will now set its sights on closing the remaining USD 1.3 Mn raise in the equity round.
Jamii Africa was one of the 20 scale-ups accelerated by last year’s World Bank XL-Africa initiative. The insurtech venture is also one of the startups supported by the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator. By virtue of its high social impact and innovative initiative, Jamii Africa provides affordable and accessible mobile-based health insurance to the low income and informal sector population in Tanzania.
As spelled out in the press release, the ball was set rolling on the latest investment after Munis met with Makoi at a Washington DC-based accelerator put together by Tiphub. From all indications, the US-based entrepreneur was impressed by the innovation driving the startup’s business model, as well as the traction it had gained. This inspired a visit to Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital, earlier this year, where the NewWave Technologies Chief met with the startup’s partners. However, as at the time of publishing this content, efforts by WeeTracker to get Munis’ comments with regards to the investment are yet to come to fruition.
